Case Study: The Kirketon Hotel "Security and Peace of Mind"

The Kirketon Hotel gains from the internet

Learn how David Hamblin at The Kirketon Hotel has harnessed the internet to maximise gains. When customers book rooms on The Kirketon website, room availability is immediately updated, and email booking confirmations auto-generated. And if customers book rooms on last minute web portals like Wotif.com and Ratestogo.com there’s no need to manually update room availability, or to manually place the bookings in their Charts PMS.

The Kirketon's David Hamblin talks about harnessing the internet

For our boutique Kirketon Hotel, one of the key issues is staffing and the related direct and indirect drains on resources.

"...powerful and stable base..."

Two years ago The Kirketon Hotel inherited OnLine Systems’ PMS system, Charts. It provided us with a powerful and stable base from which to explore and entertain possible web interfaces. Determined to provide an excellent and detailed service to our guests we hoped this foray into OnLine’s IT based products would simplify Front Office procedures, reduce real man hours and satisfy the growing need of clients for instant confirmations- something a small hotel struggles to blend with its limited rooms and hence restricted allotments.

In our latest push to streamline procedures and maximise guest services the following Charts interfaces have been adopted over the last 12 months.

Charts Web Interface for our hotel's web site

"...real time availability, rates and confirmation..."

Over the last year we have benefited from our own web portal that provides real time availability, rates and confirmation accessible to FITs, with the option of customisation for those agents who wish to access their rates and require instant verification. Playing to our strengths, the internet has allowed us to significantly reduce the amount of staff time spent receiving and entering bookings, while limiting possible mistakes and guaranteeing all required stipulations are agreed to, and information collected. Although initially not particularly user friendly for fluid yielding, it was easy to introduce stop sells, and the Yield Management Software, discussed below, has been a big plus in achieving that flexibility.

Charts Email Interface

"...This new system has undoubtedly produced the biggest saving so far in terms of staff time, as well as negating the modern headache of last minute site updates, and the associated fears of over selling or under yielding..."

Something we overlooked originally, this has been key to improving staff efficiency, by sending an automated email confirmation to each new booking placed during the day.

Charts Yield Management Software and Web Portal Interface

This has also reduced staff work loads - eradicating the need to update last minute websites - both Wotif.com and Ratestogo.com are now off the list - also removed the need to place these bookings manually into Charts, and provided an easy to use yielding software. Although at first I was hesitant about the software's set-up it has proved to be user-friendly, and has strengthened our yielding, and produced rate parity that we can eventually maintain across a far greater number of sites. This new system has undoubtedly produced the biggest saving so far in terms of staff time, as well as negating the modern headache of last minute site updates, and the associated fears of over selling or under yielding. In the high season we have the option to sell across a vast range of sites with impunity - allowing us to maximise our position in the market without allotments at a scale that would have most large hotels struggling to maintain.

In essence, the security and peace of mind OnLine has provided through their assortment of interfaces and their continual offsite support has facilitated a trusting relationship with willingness on both sides to experiment and invent - a crucial survival tactic for a small fish in a large pond.

Conclusion

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